As Tabu mentioned Bryston and many people know that i am a critic of some of their products, i have to be honest. I sent in a unit for repair to them quite a while back. After they had it for about two weeks, i called to see what was going on with it. The "tech" there told me that he had been putting it off as it looked like a real handful but that he would look at it later that day. He called me back two hours later, gave me the rundown and shipped the unit out the next day. Given that there was a LOT of hand labor involved in what he had to do, i was charged $120 for a "B stock" chassis, all the labor involved in transferring the "guts" from the old box to the new one, benching and adjusting the unit to verify proper operation. This also covered the return shipping for what is a pretty heavy item. While the initial time prior to service was not exactly what i would have liked to have seen, the total experience was FAR better than i could have hoped for and VERY reasonably priced. Quite honestly, i could not have done the work myself and covered parts and shipping for that kind of money.
Another time worth commenting on was when i sent something into Sunfire. Their service was SO fast it was incredible. From the time that they received the unit, performed the upgrades / modifications and shipped it out was less than 24 hours. This was done at NO charge AND they covered return shipping on a 60 lb item.
I know that both Adcom and B&K are also excellent to work with. Both offer very reasonable rates and turn-around times and they stand behind their products. "Mid-fi" or not, they are good companies to deal with as far as i'm concerned.
As to how all the others do business, i don't know. I can see a tech taking longer than planned trying to track down what is an intermittent problem, but other than that, the factory trained and equipped "techs" should be able to whip most things in and out on a pretty timely basis. The fact that most of these facilities are only working on one or a very limited quantity of brands / products should help them develop quite a bit of "expertise" in terms of tracking things down and repairing them. After all, it is not like they have to know how 1000 different products from 1000 different manufacturers work and are designed.
I guess that most manufacturers just don't get it. What sets "hi end" products apart from those that are "more reasonably priced" is slightly better performance and CUSTOMER SUPPORT. If the company doesn't offer the customer support / service that one would expect, is the difference in performance really worth the difference in price ? Sean
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Another time worth commenting on was when i sent something into Sunfire. Their service was SO fast it was incredible. From the time that they received the unit, performed the upgrades / modifications and shipped it out was less than 24 hours. This was done at NO charge AND they covered return shipping on a 60 lb item.
I know that both Adcom and B&K are also excellent to work with. Both offer very reasonable rates and turn-around times and they stand behind their products. "Mid-fi" or not, they are good companies to deal with as far as i'm concerned.
As to how all the others do business, i don't know. I can see a tech taking longer than planned trying to track down what is an intermittent problem, but other than that, the factory trained and equipped "techs" should be able to whip most things in and out on a pretty timely basis. The fact that most of these facilities are only working on one or a very limited quantity of brands / products should help them develop quite a bit of "expertise" in terms of tracking things down and repairing them. After all, it is not like they have to know how 1000 different products from 1000 different manufacturers work and are designed.
I guess that most manufacturers just don't get it. What sets "hi end" products apart from those that are "more reasonably priced" is slightly better performance and CUSTOMER SUPPORT. If the company doesn't offer the customer support / service that one would expect, is the difference in performance really worth the difference in price ? Sean
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